Re: Galileo's Freefall Experiment

["Bob Sciamanda" <trebor@velocity.net>]

Hi Tom,
    I don't think there is any record of Galileo actually doing the
experiment, but - if memory serves me - he did offer the argument that
different objects must fall at the same rate simply because they surely
must do so if fastened together!  This is a specious argument (it could
just as "logically"  be applied to electric fields).
I think this is in his "Two New Sciences".

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (ret)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom McCarthy <TMccarthy@steds.org>
To: phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu <phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu>
Date: Saturday, September 12, 1998 11:03 PM
Subject: Galileo's Freefall Experiment


> Hello,
>    I have a question.  Supposedly, Galileo performed a freefall
experiment
> where he dropped a composite object of two pieces and the dropped them
> separately.  Does anyone know the gist of this experiment or where there
is
> a good read on the subject.
>    Thanks a lot in advance.
> Tom McCarthy
> Saint Edward's School
> 1895 St. Edward's Drive
> Vero Beach, FL  32963
> 561-231-4136
> Physics and Astronomy